


from your perspective, the world is flat

by blueh



Series: arachnid decathlon [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (the identity reveal is only to his decathlon team and mr harrington), BAMF Peter Parker, Canon-Typical Violence, Field Trip, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hostage Situations, Humor, Identity Reveal, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker's Field Trip to Stark Industries, Secret Identity, Team as Family, and running in the opposite direction with it, this is called me taking the field trip trope, this was written before FFH so no FFH spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-06-29 18:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19835743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueh/pseuds/blueh
Summary: Peter successfully goes on a field trip, accidentally catches the school bleachers, survives a bus explosion, and reveals his identity as Spider-Man.…not necessarily in that order, much to the confusion of his entire decathlon team.also known as: Peter Parker and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ahaha FINALLY THIS THING IS FINISHED. it was supposed to b 5k and a one shot but that...obviously didn't happen. it's a complete story sitting at around 18k total. please help me. im dying
> 
> so i HAVE seen FFH but obviously no spoilers here considering this is a) alternate universe and b) set just a little after homecoming. the avengers r all happy and friends bc thats what they deserve. 
> 
> lastly? @ marvel wheres my found family trope, huh. what'd u do w it.
> 
> some of the kids referenced are not actually apart of the decathlon team but they are all midtown characters!! theyre on the team now bc i dont like ocs.

There’s a piece of paper on the desk and a skeleton in the closet.

Admittedly, the piece of paper of in itself isn’t actually harmful to anything other than Peter’s mental wellbeing. Still, the printed words of _FIELD TRIP PERMISSION SLIP_ and underneath, in slightly smaller letters, _STARK INDUSTRIES_ , brought him an unexpected amount of dread. There's already a signature on the bottom, courtesy of Aunt May who signed it the second she saw it last night.

Peter debates leaving the paper on the desk and not going at all. He comes very, very close to simply walking out the door and _accidentally_ letting the wind blow it into the trash.

He doesn’t. For some inexplicable, inane reason, Peter picks up the paper with a sigh, runs his fingers over Aunt May’s signature, and stuffs it in his backpack.

The next two weeks could not be over fast enough.

* * *

This is where Peter Parker finds himself; two weeks later at exactly seven thirty in the morning, boarding an ordinary school bus on a Saturday in the back of the school, next to the gym. In just a few short minutes, he’ll be taking a tour of the facility that he spends much of his weekend hours doing absolutely normal things such as hanging out with the Avengers and building robotic suits for superheroes.

He takes a seat next to Ned, who hasn’t stopped vibrating since the moment he saw the permission slip. MJ gives them both a two fingered wave, sits in front of them and promptly buries herself in a book. The rest of their, admittedly small, decathlon team filters in and takes their seats, chatting widely all the same.

Flash gives him a particular vindictive smile and slaps his hand on the back of the hard bus cushion as he passes to take his usual seat in the back. He doesn’t say anything, but truthfully he doesn’t need to. Peter knows enough about Flash to get the message loud and clear.

“He’s gonna shit his pants when he finds out that you actually work with the Tony Stark, dude,” says Ned who, of course, had watched the entire thing. “Like, personal intern stuff. _Really_ personal intern stuff.”

Peter spins in his seat, mildly alarmed, “Oh no. No, no, _no_. There will be no big reveals of any kind on this trip. I am a normal intern, I do normal intern things. Like make small useless robots with the leftover scraps and bring the actual employees coffee.”

“And work on the Iron Man suit during your off time,” Ned stage-whispers. Peter immediately nudges him in the side, gives him _a look_ , and glances up—inconspicuously—to see if anyone else had overheard. Thankfully, they were all too busy in their own conversations to notice two nerds chatting about Peter’s definitely not normal intern duties.

“Dude,” he says.

“What? I’m right.”

“Don’t say that out loud.”

Ned copies _the look_ that Peter had just given not thirty seconds earlier, “Not all of us have super hearing, Peter.”

“ _Ned_ ,” Peter hisses.

The bus engine rumbles to life, not quite moving but not far from it. The chatter of the bus increases almost immediately and the excitement of a bunch of fifteen year olds spreads throughout the bus. Peter sinks in his seat, arms crossed. 

Ned turns to him, “Are we going to meet the Avengers?”

“No.”

He’s not worried about running into the Avengers. The Avengers just don’t _do_ high school tours, Peter included or not. In fact, they barely do _high schoolers_ at all. Peter knows for a fact he’s seen Rhodey turn and walk in the other direction the second before a group of rambunctious teens charged down the city streets of New York. Sam accidentally said the word fuck in front of a thirteen year old and hasn’t lived it down since. And Mr. Stark? Yeah, he doesn’t really need to say much about that. The others toe this fine line between _knowing_ how to deal with teenagers, but not _wanting_ to deal with teenagers.

Ned looks like he’s about to respond—or, possibly, ask another question that normal intern Peter Parker should not know the answer to—but Mr. Harrington stands up at the front of the bus, gripping the side of the seat to keep his balance, and clears his throat. The class takes a few seconds to quiet down, but eventually Mr. Harrington holds the entire decathlon team’s full attention.

“Thank you,” Mr. Harrington says. “Stark Industries has granted us an amazing opportunity that we were lucky to take ahold of. The school’s first priority was safety after the events of the last trip,”—there were muffled murmurs because Washington D.C is not to be forgotten—“and we will continue to emphasize this in order to have a safe, fun trip. Remember the rules we discussed this morning and be sure to follow all the guidelines that the tour guide offers us. Think of this as a continued learning experience and not just a day away from classes, if you will.”

Mr. Harrington slides back into his seat at the front. The team breaks off into loud chattering. Ned nudges his side and leans in to whisper.

“Is there going to be any,” Ned makes a few _pew pew_ and _whoosh_ noises and mimics the Spider-Man motion with his hands, “You know?”

Peter, unfortunately, does know. He thinks of his suit haphazardly stuffed in his backpack and sitting innocently at his side. He thinks of his web-shooters on his wrists that were cleverly designed to look like wrist bands unless touched in the activation spot. He always has the suit, always has the web-shooters, but he hopes that he won’t ever have to use them in an identity-crisis-related mishap. He trusts Mr. Stark _and_ he trusts the rest of the Avengers who may-or-may-not show up during a field trip but would certainly be there if anything happened. Peter was determined to keep the suit in his backpack and his web-shooters as normal, inconspicuous wrist bands.

“No, Ned. This is just going to be a normal field trip.”

* * *

The bus doesn’t make it out of the parking lot.

The moment the bus jerks forward, the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck rise and his spidey-sense screams at him to move. He has just enough time to turn to look over his shoulder and see the vague outline of three people before a _thuwmp_ is heard, his team starts screaming, and his bus explodes.

Peter doesn’t remember flying, but he does remember falling. He remembers smacking his head so hard against the bus that he sees stars.

He comes to in mere seconds, his ears ringing and his head pounding. He’s leaning against the mangled frame of the side of the bus, shattered glass strewn across the floor. Confused, he reaches up to touch where his forehead stung, only for his fingers to come back covered in blood. Everything felt hazy, his hearing was like cotton. He groped around, only feeling the cool side of the bus under his fingers and small remnants of the bus’s window imbedded into the palm of his hand.

Someone just blew up their bus.

Peter blinks his eyes and suddenly he can see and hear clearly again. The bus is on its side, fire still licking the seats above him. Someone in the back of the bus is crying. He looks around and sees the rest of his team, as well as Mr. Harrington, injured but conscious. They stare at the mangled front of the bus with wide eyes, seeing the entire thing but not once making sense of it. The bus driver lays slumped in the front seat—held in place only by his seatbelt—but Peter can still hear his labored, wheezing breaths from here and lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

He tries to move when MJ catches his eye, mouth slightly agape. There’s a cut on the left side of her face and she’s breathing heavily, but appears to be alright. He meets her eyes before turning and looking at Ned, who was groaning but otherwise uninjured. There’s a growing pit at the bottom of his stomach and it’s not because the bus is on fire. 

_Someone just blew up their bus_. Someone, with enough rocket power, went after a decathlon field trip bus to injure the students (Peter has no doubt that if these people, whoever they are, wanted them dead then they would’ve been dead). This is a pre-meditated attack on one of New York’s best school districts in a direct attempt to injure students and faculty in a way that is both inconspicuous (considering there is absolutely _no one_ near the back of a school gym on a Saturday morning) and effective.

The question is _why?_

He spots his backpack at the front of the bus. His suit. He needs his suit because something bad is going to happen—he knows, he can feel it. He starts crawling towards it, only making it around half-way with splintered glass imbedded in his forearms, when he hears the footsteps.

One, two, one, two.

Then comes the voices.

“Thought you said we needed them alive?”

“Get the fuck off my case, they’re still alive. Probably. Just roughed them up a bit.”

“If we want the money, we need those kids. Can’t bargain if they’re dead.”

“I said _get off my case_. They’re alive.”

The footsteps get louder and louder. With his attention focused on the newcomers, Peter doesn’t notice, but the entire bus has gone eerily silent. A grinding rips through the bus and suddenly there’s a pair of boots walking right of next to his backpack.

Peter looks up.

There’s two men at the mangled front of the bus, dressed completely in black. Each holds a small handgun that they immediately aim at the students in lieu of an oral threat. Peter spots at least three knives each on their person and two more guns on their thighs. Obviously, these people were not messing around which would be _fine_ if Peter isn’t a) on a school tour, b) on said school tour _without his suit on_ and c) crouched in front of a student group that definitely does not have any means to protect themselves if these assholes decide to shoot.

Perhaps the most worrying thing is that neither of their faces are covered. See, most villains don’t want their picture spread across the front page of New York Times in a _Group of Men Blew Up Midtown School Bus_ kinda headline. There are exceptions, like people who can shapeshift (cool) or people that really just want to be known for their dastardly deeds (a little less cool) but there are also people that don’t wear face coverings because they don’t plan on leaving anyone alive to report their face (really not cool).

This makes the situation that much more worrying.

Villain #1, for lack of a better name, clicks the safety off of his gun. Someone in the back chokes on a sob. Peter tenses, but the man only barks out, “Get up! Out of the bus single file head towards the gym. Leave all your belongs at the front of the bus, don’t talk. This is a hostage situation. If you try and make a break for it, we shoot. If I see a phone on any person on this bus, we shoot. If you try and call the cops, we shoot. If you try and fight back, we shoot. Understand?”

The bus stays silent.

“I said _UNDERSTAND_?”

There are a few mumbled _Yes, sirs_ but most of the bus is still can’t utter anything more than a couple of choked words. Villain #2 starts making his way through to the back of the bus, grabbing students, hauling them too their feet and pushing them out towards the front of the bus single file. 

Peter doesn’t fight it when the man snatches his arm and yanks him to his feet. It’s already glaringly obvious that this is not because he’s Spider-Man but instead a case of being in a bad situation at the wrong time. These people, whoever they are and for whatever reason, are after the decathlon team.

As much as Peter wants to, he can’t act yet. He needs his suit—or his phone. He needs to let Mr. Stark, or Mr. Rogers or Clint or literally _any of the Avengers_ , know what was happening and maybe they could get them out. Or, even better, if he could get his suit and slip away for just a _few_ seconds then swoop in and string these villains up without anyone being the wiser. 

But his suit is at the front of the bus, his phone is lying at the feet of Villain #2. Peter isn’t sure what these guys would do if he got caught trying to sneak his phone and he doesn’t want to risk his classmates getting hurt. He has to make do and find another way.

Peter stumbles out of the bus and onto the parking lot concrete. Several of his classmates are limping along. Mr. Harrington is at the front of the line looking worse for wear. He knows Ned and MJ were both behind him but he can’t see Flash or the rest of the people that sat in the back of the bus without turning his head to look.

“What about the driver?” Villain #2 says as he exits the burning bus.

“Leave him,” Villain #1 says from the front of the line. “He’s not going to wake up any time soon. The kids are the important part.”

“Peter,” Ned hisses from behind him. He feels his friend push at his shoulder and Peter glances at him out of the corner of his eye. Ned’s clutching his left arm over his chest, but overall seems to be in better condition that most of their peers.

“It’ll be fine, Ned,” Peter says lowly.

“I know, I know, because you’re here but Peter, _no one else knows that_.”

Villain #2 turns on his heel and raises a gun in their direction before Peter has the chance to respond. A couple of his classmates duck, more than a few scream. “I said _no talking!”_

Ned sinks back immediately, ducking out of the line of fire. Peter tenses, but yet again, the man is only using his gun as a threat and seems satisfied when he doesn’t hear any more whispered conversation about superhero identities. Peter absentmindedly rubs his arms, the sinking feeling in his stomach worsening, as the two men march them across the hot summer sun.

_No one else knows that._

It makes the situation that much more terrifying. Ned knows that he’s Spider-Man, that he can catch a bus with his bare hands, that he can stick to walls, that he deals with people like this _every single night_. Ned knows that he won’t let anything happen to them. No one else on the team, or Mr. Harrington, has that kind of safety net. For them, they’re trapped. They have no one to call, no one will be expecting them at Stark Industries for another hour at least, and no one is coming. No parents, no police, no superheroes.

Because they _don’t know_ Peter is Spider-Man.

Villain #1 stops at the back entrance of the gym before pushing the door open. Not locked, even though it should’ve been since it’s after school hours. More and more clues pointing to the fact that this is a premeditated attack, mostly likely after money if the first comments Peter heard were anything to go by.

The two men usher the entire decathlon team into the gym. As Peter steps inside, he bites the inside of his cheek. Unlike the bustling activity during school hours, on a Saturday morning the gym is eerily silent. The lights are off, the only source of illumination is coming from the ceiling-high windows that would be impossible to get to (unless you could climb walls but, unfortunately, most of the team is lacking in that department).

Perhaps the worst of all is the silent man in the corner.

Unlike Villain #1 and Villain #2, this man is at least seven feet tall. He wears the same black outfit as the other two and has a face covering up to his nose. He has no guns in his hand or knives on his person but he’s immediately the one that Peter labels as the most dangerous. People that don’t carry guns or knives when threatening defenseless high schoolers are either overconfident or enhanced. At the moment, Peter doesn’t know which is worse.

“On your knees,” Villain #1 says as he lines up the team and forces them onto their knees. Villain #2 paces down the line of them, eyeing Mr. Harrington in particular. Villain #3 hasn’t moved a single inch since Peter first saw him. “Hands on the back of your head where I can see them.”

As terrified as they were, everyone complies easily. It’s almost completely silent until Flash takes a shuddering breath from somewhere on Peter’s right and begs, “Please, sirs, please let us go, we don’t—"

Villain #1 cocks his gun and Flash shuts his mouth immediately, “Don’t talk.”

“I hate kids,” Villain #2 mutters.

“I know, asshole, you’ve only told us three hundred times.”

“Then _why_ are we robbing kids?”

“Robbing their parents, you dumb fuck. Shut up.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Villain #2 mimics in a high, mocking voice, almost like a child. For a second, Peter almost thinks that the two of them were going to duke it out then and there. This would be a great cover to slip out unnoticed to get his suit (which, unfortunately, is still back at the bus as is his phone), but Villain #1 only glowers at his partner before going back to monitoring the team.

“If it’s money you want, I can give you all I have,” Mr. Harrington says. Then, to Peter’s horror, takes his hands off of his head and starts to stand up. “Please, leave these kids alone. They don’t deserve this. Let them go and I’ll do anything you want—”

“On your knees!” Villain #1 snarls. He turns his gun around to the handle and smacks Mr. Harrington on the head as a warning. Mr. Harrington goes down immediately, clutching his right temple. Anger flashes through Peter, red hot and very fast. Mr. Harrington is a great guy and a good teacher. Plus, he puts up with a large amount of bullshit and life or death situations for a high school teacher. He definitely deserves a raise or, at least, a job that isn’t constantly sending him in places that try to kill him and/or his students. Dealing with life-or-death situations is Peter’s job, not Mr. Harrington’s.

Predictably, the team does not react well. Flash chokes in terror, MJ sucks in a breath of air and two or three students try and muffle screams. Peter can see Sally sobbing from where he sat, still on his knees. Probably without even realizing it, several of his teammates took their hands off their heads to hug themselves or cover their ears. They were covered in ash, cuts, blood and dried tear tracks. It looked like something Peter would think to see after the takedown of the _Deathstar_ , not on his supposed high school field trip to SI.

Something burns inside of Peter and before he knows it, his hands are off his head and he’s standing up with an indignant, “ _Hey_!”

Villain #1 must sense that he’s rapidly losing control of the situation because he takes his gun and fires it at the window. Glass rains down on all of them as the team only panics more.

This situation is going from bad to worse. Peter needed to figure out a way to end this and soon. If he could just get to his phone—or any phone, for that matter—and find a way to call Mr. Stark…

More gunshots, more screaming. He sees the panicked faces of his peers as they crouch low and cover their heads as glass continues to rains down from the bullets. They are tear streaked, covered in dirt and grime, and so very scared. Ned grabs MJ’s arm and they both turn to face him, eyes wide.

…But those are his peers. Peers that are very, very likely to get hurt—or worse— if this is to continue. 

Tony Stark isn’t here right now, but Peter Parker is.

“I said on your _knees_!” Villain #2 barks, resorting to pushing kids back down, “Stop fucking screaming!”

They continue to force everyone back on their knees, hands behind their head. There is glass in their hair, mixing with the dirt and the ash from the bus. Even Mr. Harrington, who has a large cut above his right temple, shakily gets down on two knees, slowly putting his hands back behind his head. 

Peter does not.

Neither Villain #1 or #2 notice him at first, too busy making sure that Mr. Harrington stays put, but Villain #3 does. He stares at Peter with black eyes from across the gym. When Villain #1 and #2 don’t seem to notice him still standing, Villain #3 grunts. Villain #1 and #2 whip around to stare at their accomplice but he only nods in the direction of Peter. They see him defiantly standing and Villain #1 lets out a curse while Villain #2 slowly advances.

Well, he has their attention.

“Kid,” Villain #1 says. “Get on your knees.”

Peter does not.

“Peter, please do what they say,” Mr. Harrington says lowly, watching him with worry. Peter almost feels bad, but knows that he can’t listen to Mr. Harrington right now (not that he’s listened much to Mr. Harrington in the past, but, well, that comes with being a teenage vigilante superhero). 

“Alright then, kid, if you want to be the one playing damsel in distress,” Villain #1 says. The tip of a gun is placed next to his head. “Try anything again and I send a couple of rounds through the kid’s skull.”

He’s talking to Mr. Harrington. Unfortunately for them, Mr. Harrington is the person they needed to worry about the least.

Villain #2 lingers just a little too close before shrugging and flanking Peter’s side. He’s near enough that Peter can almost feel him—definitely knows where he is considering his spidey-sense has yet to stop screaming at him since his bus exploded—but Peter can’t see him unless he turns to look. He grabs Peter’s shoulder and yanks him so he’s standing in front of his entire decathlon team.

There are gasps of horror and some stifle cries. Cindy is furiously scrubbing her eyes, on her hands and knees, eyes filled with terror. Flash is staring at him, eyes wide. Ned’s mouth keeps opening and closing like a fish while MJ gives him a hard look, mouth set in a firm, worried line.

“Hands in the air,” Villain #2 says.

Peter nods a bit to Ned and slowly raises his hands. There’s a choice to be made here—not an easy choice, but then again, it never really is an easy choice to make. Peter had already made his choice when he crawled off that burning bus without his phone and without his suit. 

He touches his index finger to his palm and feels his web-shooters slowly materialize comfortably to fit his hand. His trigger device sits nicely in the center of his palm, the mark of Spider-Man clearly outlined in black ink.

The baddies don’t see, but the rest of his team definitely does.

Here’s the thing about secret identities; they’re only good if used to protect others. Family, friends, loved ones. Spider-Man saves civilians. He saves the people of New York (and, sometimes, the world). He saves his classmates, his peers, his team. Keeping his identity a secret makes sure that the people in his life aren’t harmed, however it’s a whole other ball game when his secret identity is _preventing_ him from saving the people in his life that _are_ being harmed. So all in all, it’s a pretty easy choice to make. Spider-Man can’t save anyone if they’re all dead.

His identity is not worth it if it means risking the lives of people he calls his friends.

Despite the nagging fear in the back of his gut, Peter feels calm. He smiles, “It’s going to be fine.”

“What the fuck did you just say—?” Villain #2 starts to say. 

Peter turns and coldcocks the bastard right smack in the middle of his face. He’s down and out before he even hits the floor.

One down.

His team gasps in surprise while Ned lets out a little whoop of excitement. Villain #1 stares at the spot where his partner had been, then at Peter. He looks like he’s about to charge him, but Peter doesn’t give him the chance and fires a web right in his face. He fires another at his ankles, pulls, and tries not to feel too satisfied when the man slams to the ground. He tries to struggle to his feet but Peter knocks him out before he could even make it to his knees and silently thanks every single lesson that Natasha has ever given him on non-lethal self-defense.

Two down.

Peter turns to the spot where Villain #3 had been quietly standing for the entire hostage-turned-rescue situation but pauses in surprise. 

Villain #3 isn’t there.

“Y—you’re Spider-Man,” comes the quiet voice of Betty from behind him and Peter startles so bad that he stops scanning for Villain #3. He’d almost completely forgotten about _the entire decathlon team_ now knowing his deepest, darkest secret. “Oh my god, you’re actually Spider-Man.”

He tries to hide his grimace, but turns and faces his team anyways. Identity reveal always comes with downsides, i.e. facing the rest of his team now that they saw him kick villain ass. They’re looking at him with a mixture of awe and horror. MJ has her arms crossed, eyebrow raised with the tiniest version of a smile on her face which is not _quite_ the reaction Peter expected, but MJ rarely does anything by the book. Flash’s mouth hasn’t stopped opening and closing since Peter first turned. Sally and Abe are both scrubbing the tears from their eyes, but look relived to be safe. Cindy is shakily standing up, staring at him, while Charles helps Mr. Harrington to his feet.

“Yeah,” Peter says and tries to fish any excuse from his brain. “Listen, about that—”

Peter’s spidey-sense, which has only been a dull throb since he successfully took out those first two trigger happy criminals, suddenly _explodes_ into a warning. Without thinking, Peter turns, arms out stretched and accidently stops an entire row of bleachers from crushing both him and his team.

Someone just threw a set of bleachers at him.

His teammates yell and duck out of the way, but all Peter can do is stare at the bleachers in confusion, not quite registering what happened but not willing to happen again. Numbly, he drops the several hundred pound section of bleachers, shaking the entire gym floor as he does so, and pushes them to the side. All he can think with the roaring warning of his spidey-sense is _thank god for super strength_.

There’s a _hrmmp_ sound from in front of him. Villain #3 stands in the suspiciously empty section of a row of bleachers, arms crossed, as if he’d never moved from his original position. His beady black eyes never once blinked (which is, admittedly, creepy).

Dumbly, Peter says, “You just threw a section of bleachers at us.”

Villain #3 turns, grabs the end of the second section of bleachers and pulls until an awful grinding noise is heard. He lifts the bleachers over his head like they weighed nothing more than a stuffed animal.

“Holy shit,” Flash says from behind Peter which sums up the entire situation remarkably well.

Peter holds up his hands and his mouth moves before he even registers what he’s doing, “Alright, alright, let’s not be too hasty here.”

Before Villain #3 even has the chance to respond, Peter shots a web at his ankle and pulls, knocking the guy off his feet and dragging him forward. Villain #3, in his surprise, drops the bleachers with a loud _bang!_ on the brand new wooden gym floor (sorry, Coach Wilson). Safe to say, Villain #3 did not take that bleacher throwing interruption very well and yanks Peter’s webs off before getting to his feet and rushing Peter with incredible speed.

 _Probably enhanced_ , Peter thinks as he dives to the side to avoid being football tackled by a guy who is at least twice his size. 

_Definitely enhanced_ , Peter thinks as he dodges a single downward blow that splintered a good four foot section of gym floor and Villain #3 shakes it off with another punch that pretty much does the same thing.

Peter eyes where his team is (Ned trying to quietly cheer for him without drawing the attention of the bad guy) and deliberately moves away from them. The further away this definitely-enhanced, not very talkative dude is from his friends, the better the outcome would be overall. He vaults over Villain #3’s head, shoots a web in his face and takes off running towards the opposite side of the gym.

Villain #3 lets out an angry _hrmp_ as he rips the webbing off his face, but takes the bait and charges at him anyways.

Bingo.

Villain #3 lunges at him, almost grabbing his feet, but Peter spins on his heel and aims a kick at his face. Villain #3 easily moves out of the way and grabs Peter’s foot before throwing him off to the left in what would be a funny cartoon-eques fashion had it been Spider-Man and not high-school-student Peter Parker. Luckily, Peter manages to catch himself and smoothly flips back onto his feet, web-shooters aimed and ready to go.

Despite the nagging feeling from clusterfuck of a day, Peter feels the rush of adrenaline and _almost_ completely forgets the fact that he’s not fighting with a mask on at the moment.

“So you _are_ enhanced!” Peter says, “What’s your theme? Rhino? Goblin? Lizard? Gotta say, I’ve face a couple of those people in my time and none of them were really creative, you know? Although, I guess I can’t say much considering my entire gig is a spider but sometimes you baddies need a little better marketing. I can get you hooked up with Tony Stark’s marketing team, if you’re interested. We were actually just on our way to tour his company when _someone_ , not naming names of course, decided to blow up our bus but—”

Villain #3’s eyes narrow further and before Peter even realizes what’s happening, the man squirts this thick, black liquid in his direction. Peter flings himself out of the way—since being squirted with unknown black liquid from a bad guy trying to kill you is not the best strategy when playing superhero—but he can’t help but stare at the sizzling black ink that lands to his left.

“Holy fuck,” Peter says, “You’re a _squid_.”

Apparently that makes Villain #3, now dubbed Squid-Man, angry enough to show expression other than contentment with the way he clenches his jaw and his frown turns into a snarl.

“And you talk too much,” says Squid-Man as he charges Peter again.

“He _does_ speak,” Peter says and takes a punch on his shoulder (ouch) but dodges the next one (less ouch). “We are making great strides today.”

Squid-Man grabs him by the shoulder and slams him face first into the ground. Distantly, he can hear one of his team mates yell _“Peter!”_ which would have been touching had Peter not been slammed into the ground on a daily and is actually quite use to breaking his nose. Still hurt, though. 

With his face pushed further and further into the splintered gym floor, Peter wheezes, “Little less strides being made but still some great discoveries.”

“I am going to snap your little spider neck,” Squid-Man says and shifts his hands to (probably) do as he promised.

Peter uses the opportunity to flip Squid-Man off of him and punch him in the stomach hard enough to send him flying back a few feet, “I’m going to have to take a raincheck on that, Mr. Squid. You know how it is, high school fieldtrips and all. Mr. Stark has this entire tower tour planned and I have to say that I was pretty excited to see the R&D labs.”

Squid-Man proceeds to take a tiny little box from his pocket. Peter almost opens his big mouth to make fun of it, except Squid-Man touches the center of the square the it expands into a good five foot rocket launcher, equip with a little rocket and everything.

 _Great discoveries,_ Peter thinks a little sarcastically.

“You are not the only one with secret weapons,” Squid-Man says, like it’s a joke. Peter thinks that web-shooters do not compare to rocket launchers, but Peter’s thought are currently irrelevant considering the dude is aiming an actual rocket launcher at him, looking as if he were modeling for a Villain Vogue magazine.

Then, a thought comes to him and Peter stops and gives the man an incredulous look, “ _You_ blew up our _bus_.”

“Only on orders,” Squid-Man says, “If it were up to me, there would have been nothing left.”

That is more than a little terrifying.

“Do you know how much it’s going to cost to get that thing replaced?” Peter says instead and then shoots a web at Squid-Man’s weapon before he can fire his _actual_ rocket launcher in the school gym. Peter tries to yank the weapon away, but Squid-Man grabs his web and yanks Peter towards him. He punches Peter to the floor (again, _ow_ ) but Peter has enough sense to kick the rocket launcher out of his hands and away from him.

Squid-Man lets out an angry grunt and tries to spray him. Peter manages to fling himself out of the way for most of it, but a splash of his boiling-hot squid ink gets on his arm and it _burns._ Peter brushes it off as fast as he can, but there is already angry, red blisters where the ink touched him.

Note to self: do not get sprayed by Squid-Man’s ink.

Squid-Man takes full advantage of Peter’s distraction and grabs him by the ankle before yanking him forward and slamming him into the ground. Pain assaults every sense that Peter has as the ground splits from sheer force alone and splinters and dust are sent flying around him. Peter thinks he might’ve blacked out for a section, because when he comes to, Squid-Man is standing over him with his stupid rocket launcher a couple of inches from his face.

“Ow, that hurt,” Peter says with a wheeze.

“Any last words, Spider-Man?” says Squid-Man in typical villain fashion.

Peter tries for a grin, but can feel the blood dripping down his face, “It’s not too late to get you hooked up with Mr. Stark’s marketing team, Squid-Man.”

“You’re just as much of a little shit as they say,” Squid-Man says and readies the launcher.

Right when his finger is about to touch the trigger, something slams into the side of Squid-Man’s face with a metallic _clang!_ The object, small and cylindrical, falls harmlessly onto Peter’s chest.

An empty soda can. Someone threw an empty soda can at an enhanced squid-like man with a rocket launcher.

“Leave Peter alone, you asshole!” MJ says and readies another empty soda can.

“Y-yeah, asshole!” Ned repeats.

“Leave Spider-Ma—Peter alone!” Flash says and it’s probably the nicest thing he’s ever said about Peter (it’s a pretty low bar, but still, a little touching).

“Pick on someone your own size!” Mr. Harrington yells, which is funny in retrospect, but that is not a fight that anyone would want to see.

Sally, Cindy, Abe, Charles, and Betty all chimed in their own variations of _don’t kill Peter._

That made sense. Sense in the terrifying __oh my god my teammates are throwing harmless objects at a super-dangerous-dude__ kinda way _._

They’re armed to the teeth with lint, more empty soda cans, empty chip bags and other trash that one might find in a gym that hasn’t been cleaned for a week. They’re nervous and scared but not a single one of them is backing down if the fierce expressions on their face are anything to go by. Had Peter not been so terrified of the prospect of Squid-Man going after his team, he might have laughed. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Squid-Man says and Peter secretly thinks the same.

He pushes Peter deeper into the broken wood floor before pushing up and leaving him smashed into what remained of a once expensive gym floor. Squid-Man advances slowly on the group of terrified teenagers who picked a fight with an enhanced squid guy that been throwing _Spider-Man_ around for the past twenty minutes.

It’s brave, _oh so stupid,_ but exceedingly brave and it gives Peter the little bit of strength (and the solid distraction) the he needs in order to stagger to his feet, take off running and slam into Squid-Man’s back, web his face, and then slam him into the ground with more force than he’s ever had to muster before.

Squid-Man falls, out cold, not five feet away from his team.

Three down.

Peter staggers to his feet and stares at the ground where Squid-Man fell, then looked only a couple of feet away where Villain #1&2 were still laying. The adrenaline that has been pumping through his veins ever since their bus blew up is still there, but the ringing of his spidey-sense finally fades away.

“That,” Peter says, trying to catch his breath, “That was terrible.”

He can definitely feel that his nose is, at the very least, fractured. His arms ached and he felt sore allover. He still has an assortment of cuts and bruises from the whole bus-blowing-up thing to deal with as well, even if most of those had started healing enough to be fading away. Most importantly, though, he is still alive. As is his dumbfounded decathlon team that hasn’t stopped staring at him.

Peter looks at them with what he can only assume is the look akin to a deer in the headlights of a car (or something much bigger and more deadly, like, a train).

“So,” says Sally after an awkward couple seconds of _holy shit we almost died but didn’t because one of our teammates is Spider-Man_ silence. “Spider-Man.”

Peter is so tired.

He’s even more so when his entire team erupts into shocked chatter over his not-longer-secret identity.

“What the _hell_ just happened?” Charles says.

“Peter, that was awesome!” Ned says and waves his hands. At least he didn’t seem to worse for wear. “They were all like _pew pew_! And we were so scared even though I knew you were there but still, wow, that was awful. And you swooped in and were like _bam!_ Then you knocked them out and saved us and that was, that was so, so cool—"

“Spider-Man just saved us,” Flash says as he opens and closes his mouth like a fish. “Peter _fucking_ Parker is Spider-Man.”

Peter feels overwhelmed, a little terrified and a little relived all at the same time and didn’t know how to deal with a bunch of people that definitely shouldn’t know his identity now knowing his identity. 

(The overwhelmed feeling won out.)

“Guys, this…it’s such a—" Peter says before he cuts himself off with a sigh and runs his hands through his hair. He’s already pacing, and his team must see that he’s more than a little anxious because they suddenly become very quiet.

Peter meets Flash’s eyes.

Perhaps Flash’s respect for Spider-Man outweighed his hatred for Peter Parker, but by the time he was done opening and closing his mouth like a fish, a serious expression crosses his face.

“Nobody can know,” Peter says.

There’s just the barest length of silence before Flash crosses his arms and nods.

“Nobody will,” Flash responds. The rest of the team, including Mr. Harrington, chime in agreement and it takes all of Peter’s willpower not to let out the sigh of relief that he was holding in. It’s not that he doesn’t trust him—he does, really, but secret identities are dangerous business for any and all parties. 

“Peter…” Mr. Harrington says like he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Sorry for skipping practice all the time, Mr. Harrington.”

“I, uh, it’s fine, I guess? You had a good reason to…” Mr. Harrington says. “This is a lot to take in.”

Peter sighs but he’s glad he’s not the only one who is in over his head, “Sorry.” 

“You saved us, Peter. There is nothing to be sorry about.”

Truthfully, there is a lot to be sorry about—sorry that he isn’t who he says he is, that he wasn’t there in participate in D.C, that he got Liz’s dad arrested. Sorry that he wasn’t fast or strong enough to stop the bus from being blown up, sorry that he didn’t act sooner, sorry that they got hurt, that he was (and still is) scared of them knowing his secret identity.

Instead of saying these things, however, Peter keeps his mouth shut.

“Should we, uh, call the police?” Betty asks and looks at Peter like he’s the one in charge.

This is a very large change of pace from how they look at him in decathlon. Not necessarily in a bad way, but definitely different. The way his teammates are looking at him is akin to how civilians look at him in costume, shouting orders and making sure everyone is safe. Here, in his school gym without his suit, suddenly makes him feel just a little bit like a fraud.

“Our phones are still on the bus,” Cindy says.

Bus. Phone. Suit. Everything clicks into place in Peter’s mind. He needs to get their bus driver out of the exploded bus, needs his phone to call Mr. Stark and needs his suit for…Well, he’s not quite sure what he needs his suit for, but he definitely needs it. He’s backing away towards the door before he even realizes it.

MJ catches his wrist before he can even turn around, “Where are you going?”

“The bus,” he says and she lets go of his wrist. He addresses the rest of his team, “Don’t call the police, I’m going to make a few calls. You guys stay in here.”

“Not like any of us have our phones anyways,” Abe says. “Not after some guys with guns told us to leave them.”

“Speaking of guys with guns,” Sally says, nodding the direction of the unconscious would-be attackers. “What are we supposed to with those guys?”

Peter is more than a little desperate to escape the splintered gym, but pauses to drag all three men to the opposite end of the gym and web them up. Squid-Man gets a little extra webs _everywhere_ , just in case, because Peter doesn’t really want to fight him for a second time. While he jogs towards the gym exit that leads to the parking lot. He tries desperately to pretend not to notice his entire team watching him, but it’s a futile effort.

He doesn’t blame them—Peter knows he’d want answers too if he was kidnapped by some trigger happy asshole and then saved by a classmate they thought was like the real life version of the boy from _Diary of a Wimpy Kid—_ but it doesn’t stop the little bit of anxiety in his gut. He’s had his identity held close to his chest for a long time and while he trusts that his team won’t tell, its more than a little unsettling to look at them and know they’re seeing the amazing Spider-Man, not just high-school-nerd Peter Parker.

“Stay here,” Peter repeats as he turns to his team. He puts a hand on the door before pointing to the ground in a _don’t move_ fashion. “I’m serious.”

He’s out the door before anyone can say anything. He does hear one of his team members, Charles, say _Hi, serious._ _I thought you were Spider-Man_ which is _almost_ enough for Peter to laugh. He cracks a smile regardless and jogs toward his mangled and destroyed bus.

It hasn’t changed much since they marched across this very pavement with two armed kidnappers not thirty minutes before, but looking at the now versus looking at the bus when he was preoccupied with keeping everyone alive is a different story. The bus is still on its side, having flown about ten feet from its original point in the parking lot. The entire front is a mangled mess of metal and burn marks. Looking only from the front, it would almost be impossible to identify the hunk of scraps as a school bus. The sheer amount of destruction alone is enough to make Peter pause.

They’re luckily that no one is dead. It’s a miracle that they’re all barely injured.

 _What if somebody had died today? Different story, right? Because that’s on_ you _._

No one died, but it still feels like this one is on him.

He pushes the feelings down because he doesn’t have _time_ for this. He can sort through his feelings later, when his team is safe and he isn’t in the middle of an empty parking lot without his phone and suit and with his web-shooters out for everyone to see.

Peter carefully grabs a piece of the mangled front of the bus and moves it out of his way. He spots the driver, still alive, strapped in his seat exactly where they left him. Peter doesn’t hesitate to dive into the bus, unfasten the seatbelt that’s holding him in the driver’s seat (seatbelts save lives) and haul him out of the bus and to safety. He places the unconscious man in the shade at the edge of the building. Enough that he would be out of the way, but still easily able to be seen.

He rushes back to the bus and grabs his backpack at the front. He has to climb a bit deeper into the bus, almost choking on the smell of burn metal all around him, but eventually finds his phone casually tossed to the side without even a crack in the screen. He presses the power button and is more than thankful to every deity that has ever existed when it flickers to life like normal.

 _Stark Industries makes good phones_ , Peter thinks with a shrug. Mr. Stark can add survived being blown up by a rocket launcher to the marketing team. 

Peter unlocks the phone, finding his contacts and has his finger hover over Mr. Stark’s number. He comes very close to just saying _fuck it_ and calling Mr. Stark out here in the parking lot, away from his curious decathlon team.

He doesn’t.

Peter likes to think that it’s because he owes his team just a little bit of an explanation. He doesn’t want to keep the in the dark more than he already has, but there’s also a tiny portion of him that doesn’t want to be alone when he makes a call like this. He doesn’t really want to be alone, period, at the moment. If he thinks too much he can still remember that weightless feeling right before their bus slammed to the ground. He can still hear his team screaming for help, can still see Mr. Harrington being smacked with the butt of a gun, can still see the glass raining down from the gym windows.

So he pockets his phone with a sigh and jogs back to the gym exit. He can hear the quiet chatter from inside the gym, Ned’s voice being the most prominent. He pauses at the gym door, wanting to push it open but still not quite sure how he wants to explain everything, how he is _supposed_ to explain everything. The Avengers never really gave him a guide on how to explain secret identities.

He slips back in the gym, more than a little hesitant.

The chatter stops immediately. His team, including Mr. Harrington, look at him like a deer caught in the headlights and he mimics the expression back. They were all crowded around Ned, whose face is as red as a cherry slushy. He gives Peter an embarrassed look, scratching the back of his head with his uninjured arm. There is absolutely no doubt in Peter’s mind that his team has wanted answers and Ned was more than willing to provide.

He flips through his phone as he walks closer to them, mostly trying to avoid them staring, before getting to Mr. Starks number and pushing the call button. He puts the call on speaker so everyone could hear his phone dialing. 

“Peter,” Mr. Harrington says, “Who are you calling?”

Peter puts a finger up in a _wait_ motion. The phone rings another two times but Mr. Stark always answers on the fifth ring. Something about intimidating people into thinking he isn’t going to answer—Peter doesn’t really remember the exact reason but he’s called Mr. Stark enough times to have this down to a science.

The phone rings a fifth time and, sure enough, Mr. Stark picks up.

“Underoos. I thought your class was supposed to be here by now but I’ve got fifteen different people telling me that Midtown High has not been seen or heard from and their tour was almost thirty minutes ago. Want to explain?”

His team all recognize Mr. Stark’s voice if the sudden sucking in a breath noise is anything to go by. Flash starts coughing and Peter almost takes the time to send him a smug looking because he _told_ Flash that he knows Tony Stark, but then remembers the bus and the men and the guns and knows that today is just too much of a day to ride that victory high. Besides, gloating just isn’t worth it.

Another day Peter may be less of a man. Today, he just wants to sleep.

“Oh my god,” Abe whispers, “That’s Iron Man.”

It’s evident that Mr. Stark hears the noises, or at least Abe’s comment, by the way his phone suddenly goes very, very quiet.

“….Peter, who was that?”

Peter pushes down any remaining doubts and anxieties he has, hands shaking more than a little bit. It’s now or never.

“Hey Mr. Stark!” Peter says and he tries to keep any negative emotion out of his voice. It doesn’t work, his voice cracks and is a bit higher pitched than he’d like but truthfully it’s the best that Mr. Stark is going to get while Peter internally panics. “Funny story, actually. That was Abe. From decathlon, remember? I know I’ve told you about my team before but, anyways, we probably won’t be taking that tour. Our bus kinda got blown up and we were involved in this die-hard-esque hostage situation. Lots of guns, probably an enhanced squid dude. My decathlon team may or may not have just found out about that secret. The big spider one, you know? Anyways, have a good day. I’ll see you in a few—”

“Kid, wait—”

Peter hangs up on him.

“You literally just hung up on Tony Stark,” Betty says, just to cement the point.

“Yeah,” Peter says and stare at his phone. His hands are still shaking, not that anyone on his team has noticed.

“You hung up on Iron Man,” Betty stresses again. Peter is very well aware that he hung up on Iron Man. He is also very well aware of the consequences of hanging up on Iron Man, especially after telling him that his bus blew up and now eight new people know his biggest secret.

“Most of the time he hangs up on me so it’s a nice change of pace,” Peter says instead and scrolls through his contacts to find the second number that he’s looking for. “That was the easy phone call, at least.”

He puts the phone on speaker. It makes exactly one dialing noise before someone picks up the phone.

“Hey, Happy,” Peter says.

There’s silence on the line and he almost hangs up on his call too, but Happy is their only way out of here without calling the police and then having his secret identity outed to the world. Happy would know how to deal with this mess of a situation. Or, at the very least, have the ability to call someone that might.

(His team knowing is already the worst-case scenario. If the world knows, then Peter would be forced to live in a timeline that god had abandoned and Parker-luck prevailed.)

“Hey, kid,” Happy says evenly. “Want to explain why Tony is blowing up my phone with questions about you?”

 _Mr. Stark works fast_ , Peter thinks. Out loud, he says, “Yeah. Our bus got blown up and my decathlon team found out that I’m Spider-Man so I need you to come pick us up, please.”

There’s more silence.

“…Shit, kid,” Happy says.

“Yeah,” Peter repeats. “Can you call Dr. Cho? Some of us are injured. Not super bad, but uh...”

“Have you called the police?”

“No,” Peter says. “Just you and Mr. Stark.”

“Has anyone else called the police?”

Peter looks at his team and they all shake their heads. To the phone, Peter says, “No.”

“Good, don’t,” Happy says. Peter hears the sound of yelling in the background, cars honking and tires squealing in the background. “I’m on my way.”

“How far away?” Peter asks. 

“Legally? Twenty minutes. I’ll be there in ten.”

There’s a bone-deep relief that’s settling into his body. He grips his phone just a little bit tighter, for just a little longer. For the first time today, Peter almost felt some semblance of ease. Happy is coming, Mr. Stark knows, the Avengers would help him figure this all out. Maybe, just maybe, he can still parade around in his multi-million dollar suit with his secret identity intact.

“Thanks, Happy,” he mutters, instead, because his mind is running at a million miles a minute and he’s not quite sure he can keep up.

“See you soon kid,” Happy says. There’s more honking, some yelling and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about because Happy is coming. “Try not to do anything stupid in the meantime.”

“Me?” Peter says. He bites his lip to hide his smile. “Never.”

Happy hangs up on him and Peter almost calls him back just to talk to him. Talking to Happy was good, calming, almost normal. At the very least, it’s a solid distraction to his current situation but Happy said ten minutes and Peter trusts himself to last at least that long. He trusts Happy; it’s hard not to get close to someone that you talk to on the daily and share some pretty awesome death-defying experiences with.

Mr. Stark considers Happy a good friend and Peter does, too.

Peter pockets his phone with a sigh. He can feel the expectant stares of his classmates—the initial shock of being held hostage and being revealed as Spider-Man is finally wearing off. They’re still a little appalled at the entire situation (Peter is too), but they’re looking at him with something akin to curiosity and not just astonishment. Perks of being on decathlon mean that the people he spends most his time with have just as much of a burning need to figure out how things work as Peter does.

He has some questions to answer. He owes them this.

“Now what do we do?” Cindy asks, rubbing his arms, more than a little uncertain.

“Now, we wait,” Peter says, then pauses because he really isn’t the one in the room that should be calling the shots. Mr. Harrington, although a little worse for wear, is still his teacher. “Uh…of course, if that’s okay with you, Mr. Harrington.”

Mr. Harrington is the one that’s _supposed_ to be in charge and Peter doesn’t quite know where he stands at the moment. Does being a superhero outrank your teacher or does being a student outrank a superhero? Is it only for emergencies? Would Mr. Harrington cover for him now if he ever needed to sneak out of school for crime-fighting business? Would he have to tell the principal? Would—

“Personally, Peter, I don’t know what to do in this situation,” Mr. Harrington says. “This superhero thing seems to be more of your speed.”

Mr. Harrington and his team should have never been involved in his superhero thing to begin with and he knows he hadn’t really had much of a choice in the matter, but now he’s dragged eight more people into his business with no way to get out.

“Alright, uh, Happy—he’s Mr. Stark’s head of security, said he’d be here in ten minutes, but you already heard that because I put the phone on speaker and I…” Peter cuts himself off, nervously wringing his hands together and not quite sure what to say. He scoots just a bit closer to Ned and MJ. Without anything else to say, he finishes lamely, "So, yeah." 

His team stare at him for a while longer, unsure what to do. Peter stares right back until MJ elbows him in the side. He looks at her, blinks, and suddenly feels a gut-churning guilt. He really didn’t mean to have hidden it from her (well, truthfully, he had but all is fair in friendship and secret identities). The looks she gave him doesn’t make the coming conversation any less never-racking, but the thumbs up from Ned eases him just a little bit.

“Sorry for not telling you, MJ,” he says.

“I knew,” she replies with an eyebrow raised.

Peter pauses, just for a second, because out of all the crazy and terrible responses his mind had come up with, _I knew_ is not one of them. Peter definitely hasn’t mentioned anything to her about any sort of spider-related activities. Judging from the expression of utter disbelief on Ned’s face, Peter assumes that he hasn’t told her anything either.

“You _knew_?”

“Not all of us have super-hearing,” she says and there’s just the barest hint of a smile on her face, “But most of us can hear a whispered conversation less than a foot in front of them on a school bus filled with only ten or so people. Also you’re a terrible liar and so is Ned. It wasn’t hard to figure out.”

It makes sense. It certainly explains the strange looks and the lack of actual fear when they were all held hostage, as well as the general lack of response when he decidedly kicked villain ass and revealed his identity as a school-beloved vigilante and part-time Avenger. MJ has never been one to play by the books, but this is something even for her.

“Please give me your confidence,” Ned says.

“No,” MJ says.

Peter can only hide his surprised laugh at the sheer absurdity of the entire situation.

For a moment, just a small moment, Peter falls into the familiar banter of his friends and forgets where he is. He forgets about the three webbed up criminals, forgets about his decathlon team that has slowly migrated to sit on the floor and whisper conversations. He forgets about his web-shooters that are still visible, forgets about his phone buzzing in his hand with a billion texts from Mr. Anthony Stark himself, forgets about his suit that lies half-visible from inside his backpack. Here, with his two best friends standing in the school gym is the first semblance of _normal_ that he’s had since the bus ride. 

The moment is broken when Betty says, “Can we ask questions? Is that allowed?” Without waiting for a conformation or denial, she charges on, “Because I have _so many_ questions, Peter, like, firstly, _what the fuck_.”

Mr. Harrington almost looks like he’s about to chide her for her language but only signs and goes to sit on the ruined gym floor. Peter looks at him for just a second before he cements the idea of getting his teacher a raise in his head.

“Questions are fine, I guess,” Peter says and it’s like a dam with a crack in it that finally breaks. His team rushes to crowd him and Ned and MJ again. Even Flash, withdrawn from the conversation as he may be, scoots just a little bit closer to the group. They’re all a little rough around the edges, a little worse for wear, but this was the most animated that Peter had seen them since the bus. They were still here, okay and, more importantly, _alive_. Despite Peter’s waning nervousness of answering questions about his biggest secret, he can’t feel any regret for revealing it in the first place.

“So, just to confirm,” Cindy says. “You’re Spider-Man, right?”  
  
“We just saw him web up those criminals like it was nothing and you’re asking if he’s _Spider-Man?_ ” Charles complains. “I mean, come on—”

Cindy huffs and crosses her arms. “It was just for confirmation, Charles! I didn’t want to assume—”

“Assume because of the webs or the super-strength, huh? That bus must’ve really done a number on you if you can’t even—”

“I am Spider-Man,” Peter says, if only to stop them from getting into an even bigger friendly argument about his alter-ego. There’s almost a rush of relief when he says it, like a weight off his shoulders despite the uncertain future that his outed secret identity would bring. Peter wonders if this was what Mr. Stark felt when he announced _I am Iron-Man_ to the world years and years ago. 

Charles sends a smug look to Cindy, who sticks out her tongue in return.

“Is it true that your webs come out of your body?” Abe asks.

Peter gives him an incredulous look. He fiddles with his web-shooters, putting his hands up so his entire team can see him retracting them into normal wristbands again. “You literally saw my web-shooters. Why would you think that?”

There’s a whispered _you owe me five bucks_ from one of his teammates but Abe just shrugs and says, “Listen, Buzzfeed ran a pretty convincing article and I just wanted to make sure I was in the right before I said something I might regret later.”

“If they don’t come out of your body—” Cindy says and Peter has to hide his grimace because _why_ does everyone think they come out of his body? His web-shooters aren’t even that hard to see, “—then how do you do it?”

“The shooters are pressurized. The web-fluid is salicylic acid and toluene based. So it’s like a silica gel, kind of? Originally, it was nylon based but too many people had nylon allergies and I didn’t want adverse effects to my webs and I couldn’t figure out how to get nylon to dissolve fast enough. So instead of synthetic polymers I started working with hydrocarbons. I make it in the lab with Mr. Stark or during third period chemistry most of the time,” Peter says and then breaks off because _shit_ , Mr. Harrington is definitely going to get on him for that. He gives Mr. Harrington a pleading look. “Please don’t tell Mrs. Warren.”

“Peter,” Mr. Harrington says with all of the exasperation that one would have after find out that their student is, in fact, a part-time superhero, “I don’t think she’d believe me even if I did.”

Definitely needs a raise.

“So your internship was real?” Cindy asks with just a hint of disbelief. Flash’s head snaps up for the briefest second before he bites his lip and returned to his original position of self-induced isolation.

Truthfully, he’s not upset about the lack of belief. There, on Mr. Stark’s _Stark Industries FAQ_ page is a very bold rule that says a student must be enrolled in college classes with at least fifteen credit hours applied towards a degree in a STEM field in order to be considered for an internship. To those lucky college kids that get to apply, very, very few of them actually get to participate— as in, an acceptance rate _lower_ than that of Stanford University—and usually only for a quarter of a semester. Not, you know, for the past year and a half that Peter has been claiming he’s been working under one Anthony Edward Stark.

“It’s complicated,” Peter says and his teammates encourage him to keep answering because apparently _it’s complicated_ just won’t cut it with a bunch of decathlon students. “Spider-Man is the internship. Sometimes I go to Stark Tower because I have access to work on my suit but I don’t do like, normal intern things.”

“He works on the Iron Man suit sometimes,” Ned says.

“ _Ned_ ,” Peter says with more than a little exasperation and stares him down.

Ned just shrugs, completely unapologetic despite the apologies that he offers, “I’m sorry, Peter, but it’s just so cool.”

“Dude, _wicked_ ,” Charles says, “Does that mean you know the Avengers?”

“Unfortunately,” Peter says.

Abe snaps his fingers like something just occurred to him, “ _You_ saved us in D.C!”

“ _That’s_ why you kept disappearing!” Betty exclaims.

“ _And_ why he wasn’t at the competition,” MJ adds, sounding just a little bit like an accusation. He probably deserves that.

“What were you even doing in D.C?” Cindy asks because apparently, not that Peter minds, she has a million and one questions up her sleeve. “Obviously, it wasn’t just for decathlon. You hadn’t planned on going to begin with and only came with us at the last second citing your internship which we now know is about Spider-Man. So what changed? Why weren’t you at the tournament?”

Peter bites his lip and debates about even telling them what happened. The Vulture was behind bars at this point, Ned already knew and MJ probably already put together something similar to what actually happened so there wasn’t any _real_ danger in telling them, but doubts still lingers in his mind. It’s one thing to know that he’s Spider-Man and another to know what he _does_ as Spider-Man.

Ultimately he decides to go with an abridged version and says, “I was hunting down a weapons dealer and accidently got locked in an impenetrable vault.”

His team doesn’t push for an elaboration, thank god, because Peter isn’t sure that his pride can handle telling everyone what exactly when down during that particularly nasty encounter.

“The weapons dealer that happened to be Liz’s dad?” Charles asks and Peter almost wishes they’d asked for an elaboration instead. “Like, the Vulture dude?”

“….Yeah.”

Abe whistles, “Damn, that sucks.”

There’s a moment of silence that doesn’t last longer than a few seconds before another one of his team members, and even Mr. Harrington at one memorable point, fires question after question at him. Peter answers them and his teammates (friends) laugh and joke and make friendly comments about his secrets. It’s not quite what he expected when he thought of how a possible identity reveal would go, but he doesn’t think he’d have it any other way.

Peter catches Flash’s eye exactly once during the entire conversation for only a fraction of a second before Flash crosses his arms and turns away. There’s an embarrassed flush that creeps up the back of his neck and while Peter doesn’t know exactly what Flash is thinking (never really has, either), he knows it’s not his place to touch it. Flash has his own things to work through just as Peter. Besides, Peter already has all the assurance from Flash that he needs.

Flash said he wouldn’t tell and, weirdly enough, especially during this entire cluster-fuck of a situation, Peter believes him.

With Ned is sitting on his left and MJ on his right, he feels almost at ease. For all intents and purposes, this should be the absolute nightmare scenario— sitting in a circle with his entire decathlon team on the splintered gym floor after a hostage situation gone wrong where they all know his secret identity. There should be no reason that his nervousness was waning and his anxiety was steadily fading to the back of his mind.

It takes him a while to realize why.

Normal. This is his new normal, with his team surrounding him and pestering him with inquires and questions. It’s overwhelming, sure, and it’s not what he’s used to but to Peter’s surprise, the word _bad_ never once comes to mind. This new normal is strange and terrifying and unknown but Peter can’t find it in him to think bad and awful and terrible.

And he thinks, with the wood splintered beneath him and the criminals webbed to the floor some feet away, that he probably _should_ be a bit scared and should be a bit worried but can’t find it in himself to care as long as the words _nobody can know_ and _nobody will_ echo in his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pt two of this monster is focused on the uhhhh reaction aspect of it ie, Peter Parker's Guide On Secret Identity Fails 
> 
> the avengers will NOT be harassing flash in this bc flash is literally a 15 year old kid, yall, and idk ive never liked the thought of random actual adults w not connection to the character terrorizing and ruining a kids life. he needs authoritative figures like idk a principal, talking about it and getting him help. flash thomason is a jerk. but a REDEEMABLE jerk because in this house we dont terrorize asshole fifteen year olds we give them Character Growth


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I knew you’d be here,” Clint says. “Want to explain why there a bunch of high schoolers in our kitchen? And why you’re missing a shoe?”
> 
> Peter shuffles through the last of the discarded items, sighing when he couldn’t a single pair of shoes that would fit him. He gets to his feet, careful about his still-healing ribs, and shuts the closet door. There’s a possibility that he left a pair in the lab or the common area. 
> 
> Not liking being ignored, Clint says rather loudly, “ _Peter_.” 
> 
> “Our bus exploded,” Peter says as he walks by. 
> 
> “What,” Clint says. It’s not a question.

Happy meets them all out in the parking lot not five minutes later. He looks a little disheveled and more than a little run down, but there is nothing short of relief in his expression when he sees the team and Mr. Harrington huddled together and very definitely not dead.

It's short lived, however, and Happy takes exactly three seconds to usher them towards the black limo saying, “Alright, everyone, into the car. I know today has been stressful and you all are probably hurt but we really need to get going—”

They pile in quickly, no one saying a word except for Peter who eyes the limo and says, “I didn’t know you could drive a limo.”

Happy sighs and pushes him into the back of the car, “I work for Tony Stark, kid. I can drive just about anything.”

They end up squished in the back of a limo, weirdly silent compared to the prior few minutes of constant questions. Happy clamors in the front, already furiously talking to someone on his phone. He leaves the little window that connects the front of the vehicle to the back open— a small sign of worry that has Peter smiling—and speeds out of the parking lot.

(Peter doesn’t notice it at the time but the silence isn’t due to the shock of Peter being Spider-Man. That has long since worn off. The silence is due to the tenseness of the team as they collectively hold their breath, waiting to leave the very parking lot that this shitty situation started in. The last time they tried to leave the parking lot didn’t exactly end well.)

“Shouldn’t we go to a hospital?” Abe says and rubs the back of his head. “My head is killing me.”

There are some murmured agreements. Mr. Harrington even rubs his temple where one of the villains has smacked him with the butt of the gun, already starting to turn a dark purple color. Despite some relatively deep cuts and a large array of scattered bruises, his team seems to be in decent condition.

Peter says, “We are, don’t worry. Mr. Stark has some of the best doctors on call.”

“Dr. Cho is meeting you at the entrance,” Happy says from the front of the vehicle.

“Thanks, Happy.”

The car ride is a little more than an hour long with New York traffic and not nearly as awkward as Peter thinks it should be. It’s mostly silent, his team still reeling from the entire situation, but the questions have stopped, the air has settled and the shock has slowly worn off.

They reach their destination in record time, watching at the afternoon sun reflects off compound as the limo pulls into the from entrance. It’s an awe-inspiring building no matter how many times one has seen with, with windows that arched from the ground to the ceiling and the white exterior that makes it impossible to miss. The quinjet lay dormant, innocently parked in its spot to the left. More than a few of his teammates crowd the window to see it.

Abe whistles, face pressed up again the glass, “This is arguably better than Stark Industries.”

Dr. Cho meets them at the front entrance, just like Happy said she would. She ushers the entire team towards a private room in the medical wing, taking the time to look over everyone’s injuries. She wastes absolutely no time in grabbing the tools she needs and starting to wrap and treat the assortment of injuries presented to her.

It’s hard not to notice the particularly withering look that she sends Peter as he avoids her.

“I have a healing factor, Dr. Cho,” he says. “And I’ve been through worse.”

It’s perhaps not the best thing to say—of course, Dr. Cho already knows he’s gone through worse. In fact, she's usually the one that treats him after he has (multiple times) crawled through the window on the common floor and given several Avengers varying stages of heart failure.

Dr. Cho pauses the bandage she's putting on Abe’s leg to rub her temple for the briefest moment. “I’m aware, Peter. I’m the one who treated you and the rest of your reckless team.”

“…I thought Dr. Banner treated the Avengers?” Charles asks, more than a little hesitant.

“Dr. Banner doesn’t have a medical license no matter how many people might assume otherwise,” Dr. Cho says with the patience of someone who’s had to debunk the same assumption thousands of times beforehand. “He has experience, but not formal documentation and it’s not in our best interest to have someone without an M.D treating you. His doctorates are somewhere in the realm of biomedical engineering, nuclear physics and biochemistry.”

“Oh,” Charles says.

Sitting there, wrapped in the comfort of the medical wing (which he’s had his fair share of visiting hours), Peter finally allows himself to relax. His cuts were already on the road to healing, his bruises fading. His ribs still ached and his head still throbbed but compared to the pain he’s felt on his many spidery escapades, being blown up and thrown around by some villains didn’t rank particular high on his pain scale.

The adrenaline of the day—from the bus to the fight to his secrets being exposed—is finally starting to fade. Curling up in the safety of the compound, away from the parking lot and school gym, gave me a sense of security.

He hadn’t even noticed at first, but sitting on the med-bay bed, makes him realize that one of his shoes is, in fact, missing.

He doesn’t know when it happened, either. It could have been on the bus, or during the fight, or even when getting into Happy’s car, but it makes him sigh nonetheless. It’s such a trivial thing to care about, in the grand scheme of things, but it’s hard to blame him after the day that he’s currently having.

There were other things that he hadn’t noticed before as well. Like the cut on Abe’s thigh is just a little deeper than he thought and had to have stitches. The strike to Mr. Harrington’s face caused a grade one concussion. Cindy’s elbow is burned enough that it had to be wrapped. Flash’s entire back is currently covered in bandages.

Peter can’t help but scan each individual bandage and think _that one is my fault_ or _I could have prevented that one_. Not for the first time today, Peter wonders how all of them got out alive. It’s dumb luck. It’s only because of stupid, dumb luck that all of them are okay

“Hey, nerd,” MJ says from a little less than a foot to his left. “I can hear your thoughts from all the way over here. Stop overthinking everything.”

Peter lets out a breathy sigh, tries to clear his head, and says, “I’m not.”

“You totally are,” MJ says, eyebrow raised. “I can see it on your face. You’ve got the whole guilt complex thing going on.”

“I _don’t_.”

“Sorry if I’m interrupting but Peter, your shoe is missing,” Ned adds helpfully.

Peter looks down at his feet, experimentally wiggling his toes. MJ lightly kicks him with her own (shoe intact) foot. “Yeah.”

“I didn’t know Spider-Man was rebranding,” MJ says and Peter almost laughs. Almost. He’d be an idiot not to notice them trying to distract him, especially since they were exceedingly bad at hiding it, but appreciated it nonetheless.

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for true fashion.”

Ned scoots a little bit closer to them, eager and laughing and happy, “You should get a— _holy shit_ , is that Tony Stark?”

Sure enough, the man in question walks through the elevator in typical Tony Stark fashion, sunglasses and everything despite being indoors. The chatter in the med-bay immediately dies down, no one daring to say anything and opting to just stare at the billionaire, genius, playboy, philanthropist and full-time Avenger.

Said full-time Avenger stares right back, taking in the assortment of bandages, discolored bruises and small scuffs. He almost catches Peter’s eye once, but Peter purposely looks to the side, fingers tapping the bed, and wishes the floor would swallow him at that very second. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Tony—he does, really—but seeing Tony means talking about what happened and at that very moment, Peter couldn’t think of anything worse to do.

Dr. Cho sighs, rises to her feet, and walks out the door with a firm, “I don’t want them doing anything to strenuous, Tony.”

Mr. Stark ignores her for the most part, too focused on the group of high-schoolers in front of him.

“That’s Iron Man,” Cindy says, more than a little awe-struck.

“Wow,” Flash says and it’s one of the first things Peter has heard him say since he promised _nobody will._

Mr. Stark doesn’t say anything for a long enough time that Peter almost considers looking up, but then he claps his hands and says in a rather cheery tone, “This looks like a pretty shit day to me. Who wants lunch?”

Most of the team and Mr. Harrington raise their hands. Ned is one of them. Peter is not.

“It’s a date. On your feet, chop-chop, let’s go. We can have some grub at the official Avengers kitchen, it’ll be great, ” Mr. Stark says. The chatter of the room increases drastically and for a second, Peter is taken back to the bus, where everyone is in their seats and talking eagerly about the trip to Stark Industries. It’s fine; everything is fine. Everyone is on the bus and they’re excited and they’re happy—

There’s a _thuwmp_ sound _._ The sound around him stops and suddenly Peter is back on that stupid bus, watching in slow motion as they flie through the air, people screaming and crying and so scared. He sees the bus driver, hanging limp from his seat at the front, shockingly okay ( _but he doesn’t know that at the time_ ), and the smoke and the fire and the footsteps.

Peter flinches hard enough that he stands from the bed. He doesn’t know if it’s his spidey-sense or his anxiety, but his head would not stop _screaming_ at him despite every other logical part saying _it’s okay, you’re safe, you’re in the Avengers Compound, you’re with the Avengers, you’re with friends._

By the time he gets his heart rate back under control and convinces himself that _no_ , they are not on the bus, _no_ , they are not in the gym, and _no_ , there is no danger, he notices how dangerously quiet the room becomes. The confused, panicked faces of his team are an eerie echo of his own. 

It seems that he’s not the only one who has some things to work through.

“Sorry,” says Sally in a small voice. “I just dropped my pain meds.”

“Fuck,” Betty says with a dry laugh, “This is D.C and elevators all over again.”

Mr. Stark stands at the door, eyes more than a little pained, watching but not interacting. Peter catches his eye, grimaces, and looks away yet again. There are a few tense moments of silence as the team recovers their wits and get back on their feet.

“Well,” Mr. Stark says, “I think lunch will be good for all of us. And Peter?”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark?”

“You should probably go get a new pair of shoes.”

* * *

Peter runs into Captain America during his search for a new pair of shoes.

The rest of his team head with Mr. Stark in the opposite direction. Peter waves at them for a second before disappearing down the Avengers halls to find the room he often stays in.

Mr. Rogers gently catches him by the shoulder and pulls him to the side not very discreetly. Peter bites his lip to hold in a sigh because he knows they’re concerned and worried about him but he’s _fine,_ really _._ Just missing a shoe and possibly some broken ribs but it’s not anything he hasn’t dealt with in the past. Besides the whole your-team-now-knows-about-Spider-Man thing, but that's a different story for a different day.

“Tony told me vaguely what happened,” Mr. Rogers says. “Peter, let me know if there’s anything you need.”

“…Thanks, Mr. Rogers.”

“Steve.” 

“Thanks, Mr. Steve,” Peter says, “But uh, I’m fine, really.”

“I don’t mean just physically,” Mr. Steve says in the same tone that Mr. Stark said _I think lunch will be good for all of us_.

“I know, I know, I’m really fine,” Peter thinks of the episode in the med-bay and again of bus and the gym. He takes all those memories and pushes them into a box because he has things to do, bad guys to web and a life to live. “I’m Spider-Man, I deal with stuff like this all the time.”

He doesn’t have time for trauma. Just like in D.C, or with the Vulture, these things aren’t new to him, he’s dealt with them before. He can deal with them again. So what if he can’t go near elevators or airplanes or tight spaces without getting a little anxious? It’s fine, he’s got powers and a responsibility to always be fine, and he can deal with it just like every other time before.

Mr. Steve just raises an eyebrow, “You were attacked as a civilian, put in a position of helplessness and, in order to save your team, you were forced to reveal one of your biggest secrets to a group of people that you did not choose nor know if you can trust.”

“I do trust them,” Peter says automatically and then bites his lip because, yeah, he makes it sound pretty bad.

“But you didn’t choose them,” Mr. Steve says.

Peter sighs, rings his hands together and says, “When you put it that way...”

“Like I said, I’ll be there if you need me,” Mr. Steve says and lightly clasps him on the back. “I’m proud of you, though, son. You made the right call.”

It’s the first time he’s heard something other than _it’s your fault_ (courtesy of his own brain). Peter doesn’t know why, but its more than a little reliving, even if he can’t bring himself to agree with it quite yet.

“Thanks, Mr. Steve.”

“Just Steve.”

“Right,” Peter says like he’d every call Actual Captain America by his first name. He scuffs his foot on the ground before he remembers that, right, he’s looking for another pair of shoes. “This has been a great talk but I actually gotta blast, y’know, missing a shoe and all, so I’ll just be on my way—”

He’s gone before Mr. Steve Rogers has a chance to reply.

* * *

Peter doesn’t find his shoes, but he does find Hawkeye.

He’s made it to the room he stays at when he’s here for the weekends or crashing after a particularly nasty patrol. Shuffling through closest after closet yields nothing so far, but he knows he’s left at least one pair of shoes here before. The question is not _if_ he finds them, but _when_ he finds them.

Clint Barton bursts through his door. Peter jumps, whirling on his feet, web-shooters out and aimed. Clint either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care because he storms in as always, wildly confused expression on his face. Peter raises and eyebrow and goes back to digging through his (rather large) closet.

“I _knew_ you’d be here,” Clint says. “Want to explain why there a bunch of high schoolers in our kitchen? And why you’re missing a shoe?”

Peter shuffles through the last of the discarded items, sighing when he couldn’t a single pair of shoes that would fit him. He gets to his feet, careful about his still-healing ribs, and shuts the closet door. There’s a possibility that he left a pair in the lab or the common area.

Not liking being ignored, Clint says rather loudly, “ _Peter_.”

“Our bus exploded,” Peter says as he walks by.

“What,” Clint says. It’s not a question.

It’s not the best thing to say, Peter thinks as Clint catches him by the shoulder. His eyebrows are knitted together and it’d be almost funny if Peter isn’t so determined to find any usable pair of shoes. Peter shrugs him off and Clint scrambles to his feet in order to follow him.

“Wait, _what_? Peter, you can’t just say that and walk away, seriously, _what the fuck.”_

 _I can and I will,_ Peter thinks. Or at least, thinks that up until Clint catches his shoulder, pulls him back into the room and doesn’t let him escape. Peter doesn’t bother hiding his sigh because, really, he just wants a pair of shoes so he can he back to his classmates, sort this mess out, and go to sleep. He doesn’t really want a _are you sure you’re okay?_ talk from every single Avenger that can catch him in the halls.

“Explain,” Clint says.

“Our bus exploded,” Peter says slowly, “I had to reveal my identity as Spider-Man to my entire decathlon team and Mr. Harrington to save them, I fought Pinky and the Brain and their squid accomplice and now Mr. Stark is trying to make up for it being an awful day by giving my traumatized classmates lunch in the Avengers Compound.”

Clint eyes him, “They’re not the only ones traumatized, I think.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? I’m fine, seriously. I’m fine.”

Fine enough to push all his bus and/or gym related thoughts to the curb until a much later time period, at least. 

“I’m not going to push,” Clint says, “But my door is always open. Talk to Tony a bit, when you get the chance.”

Peter gives him a two-fingered salute, “Yes, mom.”

“I don’t think Nat would like that title being taken from her,” Clint says with a wry grin. Peter is thankful he dropped the _talk about your feelings_ quickly. Clint has always been the most understanding about emotional boundaries, despite his problems with physical ones. “There’s a pair of shoes in the bathroom.”

Peter goes to look and, sure enough, a pair of used shoes sat innocently to the side of the door. Peter kicks off his last remaining shoe before slipping on the new ones. Clint laughs a bit from his spot on Peter’s bed but Peter only rolls his eyes and says, “Do I want to know how you know that?”

Clint points at himself, “Genius superspy.”

Peter laughs a bit but then quiets down, “I have to get back to my team, but, uh. Thanks, Clint.”

“You did good, kiddo,” Clint says. “I’m serious about the whole talking to Tony bit.”

“Everyone always is,” Peter says and ups his determination to avoid talking to Mr. Stark about today. He slips out the door and hopes no one can blame him for wishing that his trip to the kitchen will be Avenger-less.

* * *

Peter finds his team and Mr. Harrington in common room. Mr. Stark is leaning again the wall, waving his hands around as he tells an assortment of stories. Natasha is there, curled up on a beanbag with her nose in a book. She looks up for the briefest moment, gives him a wink and points to MJ with a thumbs up. Then she goes back to her book without a second thought. 

Mr. Stark welcomes him by throwing an apple at his face, “Hey, kid.”

Peter catches it easily, takes a bite out of it and goes to sit next to his team. Betty and Sally scoot a bit apart to make enough room and he plops down in between the two of them with a mumbled _thanks_. 

“Cool pair of shoes,” Sally tells him.

“You have an extra pair of shoes just lying around the Avengers Compound?” Flash asks without the usual bite.

“I’m here enough that I have a lot of stuff,” Peter says with a shrug because it’s true. The wild life of a teenage super-hero doesn’t exactly lend much for having all of your superhero gear gathered in a single space. “Shoes included.” 

“Not that he can ever find it,” Mr. Stark says just as a way to embarrass him.

“ _Hey_ ,” Peter points at Mr. Stark with his half-eaten apple, “I cleaned last week.”

“That’s your definition of clean?” Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow. “DUM-E could do better than that.”

“Peter should definitely host decathlon practice from here on out,” Abe says is awe, mostly to himself, but it doesn’t stop the whole team from hearing and agreeing with them. Mr. Stark laughs and agrees easily enough, much to Peter’s mortification.

(Not that he truly minds—they’re keeping his biggest secret, after all, and it’s the least he can do to make decathlon that much more interesting.)

They lapse into silence as they finish eating. Natasha lay curled up on her beanbag, not once bothering to glance up. Mr. Stark tries for a couple more conversations but he’s too awkward around kids to really get anything more than a couple sentences before the conversation tapers off again. Peter learns that Rhodey is on his way, dealing with the villains personally, while Sam and Wanda are out of state on a mission but should be here in a couple hours. Dr. Banner is holed up in his lab, purposely avoiding everyone and Vision is on strict orders not to come down and, quote, _traumatize them more than needed._

Eventually, Mr. Stark sighs and says, “This is rather uneventful. You said you were going to Stark Industries for a field trip?”

The implication throughs Peter for a loop, just for a second. He frowns, trying to figure out what his mentor is planning, before an idea so ludicrous pops into his head and he immediately knows that this will only end in disaster.

“That would be correct,” Mr. Harrington says. The rest of the team eye each other. MJ raises an eyebrow and Ned vibrates in his seat.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says with more than a little disbelief.

“What? It’s fine. There’s a couple of hours to kill while we get everything figured out. The Avengers Compound is no Stark Industries but it’s still pretty cool,” Mr. Stark says, standing from his spot and brushing out his clothes. “Nothing says shaking off a terrible hostage experience like touring the safest facility in the United States of America.”

There’s a snort from the other side of the room as Clint decides to walk in, “My hearing aids must not be working because I’m pretty sure I just heard Stark call his buildings the safest in the States.” 

“Holy shit,” Flash says, “That’s Hawkeye.”

“Statistics say otherwise, Barton,” Mr. Stark says, but there’s a teasing edge to it.

“Is Malibu included in those statistics?” Clint asks.

Natasha laughs from her unmoved position and Peter hides a wince because _ouch._ Most of his team watch the banter with some degree of confusion but to Peter, this is nothing more than a regular Saturday afternoon. Nothing says _good afternoon_ like a nice battle of word tetris with two of the most well know people on the planet.

Mr. Stark huffs, crossing his arms, “I don’t remember _you_ being there.”

Natasha cuts in smoothly and says, “I don’t remember you in Budapest, either.”

Peter whistles, Clint laughs. His team members don’t quite know what to do, other than MJ who lazes around the edge of the couch and picked at her bandages, looking bored. The look on Ned’s face leads Peter to believe that his friend, despite the general shitty morning, is having the time of his life watching the Avengers go in for the kill. 

Mr. Stark gives her a look of betrayal and asks, “Whose side are you even on?”

She doesn’t get a chance to respond because Mr. Rogers chooses that time to walk into the common room. He doesn’t have his suit on, but based on build alone he’s easily the easiest person to spot in the room, only challenged by Mr. Stark in terms of sheer recognizability.

He must have heard to tail end of the conversation because he says, “We all have places where we can’t be no matter how much we wish we were. We can't change the past. We do our best to move forward, as a team and hope that we'll all be there when we need each other.”

Tony claps. It’s hard to tell if its sarcastic or not, “Capsicle coming through with his quotable line of the day. Alright, wrap it up! We’re done here. Captain America gave his quote, now we all have to go home. Shows over.”

“He gets two quotes a day, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. Mr. Rogers sighs.

“That’s _Captain America_ ,” Ned whispers, more than a little awe-stuck.

“You must be Ned. Peter tells me a lot about you.” Mr. Rogers says. 

“ _Ohmygod_ , _Captain America knows my name_.”

Mr. Rogers gives him a tight smile before turning and addressing the rest of the class, “I’m very sorry all of you have gone through this. If there is anything we can do to help, please let us know. You’re our guests currently and any friends of Peter are friends of us as well.”

“We’re going to give them a field trip of the compound,” Mr. Stark says without much room for disagreement. He gives the team an award-winning smile, “As a plus, Peter can show you super neat classified stuff considering the amount of NDAs you’re all about the sign will basically require you never to speak again.”

Seeing some of the looks on his team’s face, Peter jumps in and says, “He’s joking.”

(Peter doesn’t know if he’s joking, probably never will, and desperately wants to keep it that way.)

* * *

They go on the field trip.

It would be quite the site to see to any outsider—a group of eight kids and one adult covered head to toe in different bandages and bruises wandering the halls as the Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, leads them around the empty Avengers Compound. He shows them the training room (“Come back next time when you’re not injured and we’ll let you all use it.”), the bedrooms, the press room, several of the assorted labs and, of course, the suits.

 _All_ of the suits.

The trip itself goes rather smoothly. Mr. Stark walks slow so those with leg injuries can keep up (because _no one is_ going to miss a tour of the Avengers Compound lead by Tony Stark himself) and answers any questions he can. If he feels particularly vindictive, he pawns the question off to Peter and Peter is left fumbling for an answer all the while shooting Mr. Stark a glare.

There’s a part where Flash looks like he’s about to say something particularly snappy but then pauses. It’s as if the entirely of this awful day had caught up to him and he gapes for a couple of seconds, turning it into the world’s most suspicious cough. Peter doesn’t know what pieces Flash puts together, but whatever it is, it's obviously groundbreaking. Peter might’ve laughed had the entire situation not trauma-induced and had Flash not been trying to be a relatively decent person most of the day.

He’s not the only one that notices by the way Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow.

“That was a good choice, kid,” Mr. Stark says to him. Flash turns the color of a tomato and looks away. “You know what this is? Growth.”

For a moment, this is the field trip. They’re a little beaten and a little traumatized, but they were alive and well and everything is going to be okay. They were in the Avengers Compound, they were taking a tour and, of course, _all’s well that ends well_ as they say. 

They end up huddled together on the front porch of the compound, their tour having come to a close. Their families would start to think something is terribly wrong if they don’t get going soon. It’s already late afternoon, Mr. Stark had gone over the NDAs, what they can and can’t say to their families and to call and ask if they ever had any questions.

(He also sent them home with promises of full rides—and a steep raise, for Mr. Harrington—to the college of their choice if they could all keep their mouths shut.

Cindy had informed them, very seriously, “If any of you babble and I lose this scholarship, it will not be Iron Man that you’ll have to worry about.”)

A bright yellow school bus pulls up a few minutes later. There’s an immediate negative reaction, much like the time at the med bay, if the sudden tense silence is anything to go by.

Mr. Stark notices the weariness on the their faces when they look at the school bus and says, “You know what? Today seems like a limo day. What do you guys say? Happy can take you back to your school and into the arms of your loving family. No school buses required.”

There’s a tangible sigh of relief.

This is where Peter Parker finds himself; two weeks after he turned in his initial permission slip at exactly four forty five in the afternoon, waving goodbye to his decathlon team on a Saturday afternoon from the porch of the Avengers Compound. He’s covered in injuries, more than a little tired, but he’s alive. In just a few short minutes, he’ll be ushered back inside to (hopefully) slip away from Mr. Stark before he can get a third _you need to talk to someone_ conversation in.

* * *

“You want to talk about it?” Mr. Stark asks.

As the Parker Luck goes, Mr. Stark ends up cornering him a long not long after he waved his team off and promised to answer any more of their questions through text. They even made a group chat, named it (very originally) _arachnid decathlon_. They offered to put Mr. Harrington in it as well, since he's a part of the secret too, but he declined and stated that he’d rather not know what goes on in a high schooler group chat (especially one with a known vigilante). Plausible deniability and all.

Mr. Stark called him a smart man.

“Peter?” Mr. Stark asks when Peter doesn’t respond in a timely manner. Peter almost thinks that he’s being casual, if it not for the determined gleam in his mentor’s eyes and the hand on Peter’s shoulder that is impossible to shrug off. Peter, unfortunately, knows how this is going to end.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

They meander towards the lab. There’s no one there, thankfully, although no one but the two of them really visit the lab. Peter doesn’t know why, but the lab always seems to be the go to for heartful and difficult conversations. It might be because of the things to tinker with as an escape, or the thousands of loved spare parts that are used to make something so much bigger than themselves.

Mr. Stark plops down on one of the many (burnt, from countless experiments) couches, patting the spot next to him. Reluctantly, Peter sits.

“I _know_ you’re not as okay as you seem, kid,” Mr. Stark says and he might as well have said _tough shit, kid, you’re going to talk about it anyways_.

“I’m actually perfectly fine despite the weird number of people insisting otherwise.”

“Yeah, I saw as much after that last episode in the med-bay,” Mr. Stark says with a raised eyebrow. Shit. Of all the people to witness that entire debacle, Peter forgot that it had been Mr. Stark. “You deal with trauma by pushing it down and forgetting that its there. You’ve always been good at hiding it.”

“Yeah, well, I learned from the best,” Peter shoots back.

Mr. Stark taps his forehead, “That is not a good thing.”

For the briefest second, Peter is back on the bus, then back in the gym for another. Squid-Man is standing over him, rocket launcher in place. His team screaming as guns fire and glass rains down on them. A mantra of _leave the kids alone, leave the kids alone, leave the kids alone_ , circles around his head.

Maybe the day is finally getting to him, or the exhaustion is making him irritated. Whatever it is, it bubbles to the surface, is lightning fast and just as hot.

“What do you want me to say?” Peter snaps, “ _I messed up_. I could have done more, but I didn’t. I have these—these _powers_ and I didn’t use them until the last second. My bus exploded because I wasn’t fast enough to react. My teammates almost died because I was too scared to reveal my identity sooner. My friends had to step in when I was fighting because I _almost_ wasn’t strong enough to handle him on my own.”

“Almost is a key word here.”

Peter sighs, the irritation already fading, “Mr. Stark—"

“Nu-uh, nope, stop,” Mr. Stark holds up an _x_ with his hands. “ _Maybe_ you weren’t fast enough to stop it from happening, and _maybe_ you were scared to reveal your identity, and _maybe_ you needed help when you were fighting but, Peter, you saved those kids’ lives. They’re going home, living and breathing, because _you_ stepped up and did something.”

It would have taken a single spit up, a single mistake and someone would’ve died. The outcome of today could have ended very differently had Peter not acted, or acted just a little slower. It could’ve ended differently if Peter acted right away, acted just a little bit faster.

Peter picks at the bandages on his arm, thinks of the injuries his team has and says, “It doesn’t feel like enough.”

“It never does.”

They lapse into silence. It’s not uncomfortable—neither of them were really uncomfortable with each other at this point considering the absurd amount of time they spend holed up in the lab together. Limited hours of sleep, a gracious amount of coffee and two over-sharing fools makes for quite the amount of heart-felt conversations.

It’s funny, almost, because Mr. Stark’s _they’re going home, living and breathing, because you stepped up and did something_ is the same as Mr. Roger’s _you made the right call_ and Clint’s _you did good, kiddo_. The same way that Mr. Roger’s _I’ll be there if you need me_ and Clint’s _my door is always open_ is Mr. Stark’s _you want to talk about it?_

It almost feels like déjà vu.

“Do you know I’ve said thank you to every Avenger whose decided to harass me into talking to you?” Peter says suddenly. “That’s how this conversation ends, every time.”

Mr. Stark sounds amused when he asks, “Does that mean I get a thank you?”

Peter tries to hide his smile and hmms and haws for a second, just for dramatic effect. “I’m debating about it. I almost liked Mr. Roger’s conversation more— _ow_ , hey!” He scoots just a little bit farther away just in case Mr. Stark decides to elbow him again. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I do appreciate you talking to me and I probably needed to hear that so…Thanks, I guess, for talking to me, Mr. Stark.”

“Tony,” Mr. Stark says.

Peter gives him a wry smile and nods, “Right.”

Mr. Stark gives him a _look._ Peter answers back by sticking his tongue out like a mature adult.

Mr. Stark stands up suddenly and says, “Alright, enough of this pity party. Let’s do something fun. Do you want an Avengers day or a lab day? Or even a _crawl up in your room and forget today every happened_ kind of day? We all need those sometimes. It’s up to you.”

The thought of hanging out with his family that he’s come to love after a bad day sounds like the perfect idea. There’s never much time for sadness with the rest of the Avengers, from movie nights on Friday to taco time on Tuesdays. These are the people that have shown him the ropes, picked him up after he falls, taught him how to be a hero. There the people that make corny jokes and banter until the sun comes up.

They’re more than a little odd, but they’re Peter’s family and he won’t trade them for anything. 

“I think it’s going to be an Avengers day.”

* * *

“Hey, kid,” Clint says immediately when Peter enters the common room later that evening. The rest of the team is there, spread out on the assortment of couches and lounging away the day’s stress. They don’t say anything besides Clint—Sam raises an eyebrow, Natasha and Bruce wave, Vision pats the seat next to him as an opening, Wanda smiles, Mr. Rogers nods in greeting. It doesn’t stop him from feeling welcomed all the same.

“Hey, everyone,” Peter responds. “Hey, Clint.”

“Heard you had a hell of a day,” Sam says.

“Don’t remind me,” Peter says.

Mr. Stark enters not a moment later with all the confidence of a billionaire but the air of someone who can’t get a sixteen year old to call them by their first name, “Clint? Why is he Clint and I’m still stuck with this Mr. Stark nonsense?”

“Bribery,” Peter says and goes to flop face-first into the couch.

“Bribery? I’m good at bribery. What kind of bribery are we talking about?”

“No about of bribery in the world could get him to stop calling you Mr. Stark,” Clint says with a grin.

“You’re corrupting the youth, Barton—”

“He still calls Steve Mr. Rogers,” Natasha says, the traitor.

“Mr. Rogers is out of respect,” Peter says a little breezily, voice muffled because he’s still face first into the world’s most comfortable couch.

Tony raises a eyebrow and crosses his arms.

“Just Steve,” Mr. Rogers corrects.

“Mr. Steve is out of respect,” Peter amends. Steve sighs and Peter can only keep his face straight for a few moments until Clint bursts into laughter. Natasha raises an eyebrow, but she’s smiling as well.

“There’s a little bribery there, too,” Wanda says.

“Just a bit,” Peter agrees.

The pieces slowly fall into place and here, in the comfort of his own home and with the people he loves surrounding him, Peter finally allows himself to curl up, close his eyes and relax. For the first time all day, his spidey-sense is finally quiet and he feels that much more at ease with his future.

* * *

When Monday comes around, he’ll go to school like normal. Except this is the new normal—where the gym is being redone, the parking lot cleaned and his decathlon team knowing about Spider-Man. He’ll pass Charles in the hall who makes the Spider-Man motion at him like it’s some sort of inside joke. He’ll meet up with Betty and Ned in the library as they discuss, quite heatedly, which Spider-Man save of the week was coolest. He’ll see Flash, a little nervous and a little jittery, come up an apologize sincerely before disappearing back into the crowded hallways again. He’ll eventually notice the increasing amount of super-hero questions in the decathlon stack courtesy of Abe and Sally. Mr. Harrington will give him an excused absence for every time he misses because of spider-related mishaps as well as a secret key that gets in to the chemistry closet for ‘sudden emergencies’ _._ They’ll find a large sum of money from an anonymous donner to improve the extracurricular activities and end up hosting decathlon in the common room of the Avengers tower every other week.

This is their new normal. It’s sitting at the table and saying _remember when our bus blew up and we were held hostage?_ and laughing about it like they don’t all go to mandated therapy once a week courtesy of one Tony Stark. It’s Spider-Man watch parties and waking up to various worried messages from his team after a particular rough night as Spider-Man. It’s having car pool turns because no one could get on a bus without being sent into a panic. It’s staying up at late nights and waking up in early mornings because sometimes it's hard to sleep without dreaming. 

Peter didn’t chose the people that share his experience and know his secret, but he does know that, all in all, it’s a pretty awesome group of people that now know. It makes decathlon that much more interesting when your teammate rushes out for their part-time superhero duties and that much more fun when he comes back and they’re all waiting for him like nothing ever happened. 

It took less than a few hours for his entire world to be turned on its axis but his skeleton is out of the closet, his team only grew stronger as friends, and it feels pretty damn _good_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaannnndddd thats a wrap! hope you liked it :^) i haven't read over this chapter as much as i did the last one, so if there are any mistakes feel free to let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr! https://blu-eh.tumblr.com


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